Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description provided in this section is not itself prior art to the claims and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In order to deliver video program content to end-users for presentation on televisions (TVs) and other such devices, a provider of the content may transmit the content to one or more video program distributors (VPDs) that in turn transmit the content to various end-user TV receivers. Such a hierarchical arrangement can facilitate convenient, widespread distribution of content.
By way of example, in order for a media company to distribute video program content to end-user TV receivers throughout the United States, the media company may transmit the video program content by satellite or other medium for receipt by VPDs that serve respective market areas within the United States. Each such VPD may thus receive the national satellite feed carrying the video program content and transmit the video program content to end-user TV receivers in the VPD's market area. In practice, these VPDs and their means of transmission to end-user TV receivers may take various forms. For instance, the VPDs may include cable-television providers that transmit video program content to end-user TV receivers (e.g., cable TV subscriber devices) through hybrid fiber/coaxial cable connections, terrestrial over-the-air broadcast TV providers that transmit video program content through terrestrial air interfaces to end-user TV receivers (e.g., standard digital televisions or associated adapters), and others.
The video program content in this arrangement may comprise one or more TV shows along with one or more commercials positioned within or between TV shows. Further, the video program content may comprise multiple TV channels, each of which may in turn carry one or more TV shows and one or more commercials, in which case the VPDs may be multi-channel video program distributors (MVPDs) that provide end-users with a selection of multiple channels to watch. Further, the video program content may be digitized and packetized for transmission as a transport stream from the video content provider to the VPDs and from the VPDs to the end-user TV receivers.